| Muck and Mystery Loitering With Intent |
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Sometimes we see what we want to see, and so miss some interesting things.
I hope I'm wrong (I really do), but I fear that too many people who read the following about Frank Perdue will regard such efforts as contemptible, low, mean, almost comical, unworthy of being ranked as great. In fact, such efforts are precisely the sort that makes our prosperity so vast and deep. . .hmmm, well, yes, Perdue is in a sense more admirable than a politician, but not much.But what was its [a Perdue chicken's] unique selling proposition? To hear Perdue himself tell it, his chickens were just plain better than anybody else's. . . he spent six months on the road, talking to butchers about what qualities they liked to see in their chickens. . . he mated a meaty-breasted Cornish male with a White Plymouth Rock female to create the Perdue pedigree. They didn't want bruised meat, so Perdue set strict protocols for handling live chickens.Ain't it great that someone -- someone who is a stranger to almost all of America's chicken eaters -- spent his valuable time traveling around asking butchers what features make a good chicken? Ain't it great that Frank Perdue cared about the water his chickens drank? Ain't it great that he bred a new breed of chicken? Sure, he did all this to make money for himself. But so what? His means of making money inspired him to care deeply about what the typical chicken eater likes and dislikes about chicken.Why is it that so many people admire the likes of FDR and LBJ who uttered fine phrases but whose ideas of helping people never went beyond stealing from some, showering part of the booty on others, and bureaucratically regulating everyone?
Frank Perdue alone has contributed more to our quality of life than has any politician you care to name.
Nearly every commodity chicken is a Cornish/White Rock cross. Perdue didn't invent anything. Nearly every commodity meat producer for every kind of meat polls butchers and retailers about customer preferences. Perdue didn't do anything interesting with this either. Care in handling to avoid damaging the meat is too common to mention, conventional wisdom, except for a marketing pitch.
That's the real Perdue story. The last line of the referenced article is the best one.
. . . that's what the ad guys understood that Perdue never did. He thought he was selling chickens. But he was selling Frank PerdueIs there something admirable about selling yourself so well that you prosper hugely? Is this much different than what a politician does? I think not. Is this what makes our prosperity vast and deep? I think not.
A graf from a review of Clifford D. Conner's A People's History of Science, previously discussed in Science Class, comes to mind.
"If I have seen further," Newton wrote, "it is by standing on the shoulders of giants." At the same time, Newton also stood on the backs of "anonymous masses of humble people," as Conner says, "untold thousands of illiterate artisans." An accomplished army of the anonymous bequeathed him their tools, data, problems, ideas and even, Conner argues, the scientific method itself.Perdue used good advertising to profit from techniques developed by "an accomplished army of the anonymous". More power to him and all, but it is that army of the anonymous working within a system that gives them latitude to create - as well as fail - that makes our prosperity vast and deep, not Perdue or the politicians. They jump in front of passing parades but they aren't leading them, can't stop them, and arguably make no useful contributions. The parade would proceed just fine without them.
Perdue can be admired for being able to promote and enrich himself, but let's not exaggerate. Perdue is good for Perdue but largely irrelevant to our prosperity. Our prosperity as well as Perdue's good fortune result from the structure of the system that leaves folks sufficiently free to develop efficient production methods for goods that are valued.
This is worth understanding because it is still happening, even with chickens. Values are changing now. More people are concerned with product quality than in the past, and more are concerned about production methods. That accomplished army of anonymous developers have created better chicken crosses and production methods resulting in far more flavorful chickens with better texture (according to gourmet chefs etc., YMMV) and do it in more humane and environmentally benign ways. A new Perdue may find a way to jump in front of this parade too.